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11 May 2017

NEXOGON: Sanctum of the Clockwork King

Duncan Lindbo (donutsftw) is back again today with his Nexogons (the new hexagonal LEGO® piece 27255), taking things a step up...

Phew! This build used up all the Nexogons Tim sent me, and then some!

This build grew out of a vague idea I had to use the Nexogons as steps on some sort of sci-fi or Steampunk staircase. My first experiment turned out okay, but I wasn't satisfied.

The railings were tricky to attach, and the frictionless attachments that connected each step to the next meant the whole thing was very floppy.

So I decided to redesign them, using a 157.5° Technic axle connector (Design ID 32016) for strength.

The curve of the staircase isn't as subtle now, but at least it's not flopping around all over the place. I used 4L bars (Design ID 21462) to pin each strut to the one below it. They stick out a bit on each step, so 3L bars (Design ID 17715) might work better, but I didn't have enough of those.

Once I got a few of these sections built, I thought it'd be neat to built a "triple helix" structure with them, since I don't really have enough parts to build some sort of interior large enough to house and support a single set of steps (despite what non-AFOL friends and family might think.) Once that was done, I decided to steampunk it up, covering the various Technic support structures in all manner of gears and mechanical bits, with some gold details to add some color. They look cool, but they don't serve any functional purpose. I'll leave that to someone with more Technic skills than me!

Of course, if this is supposed to be the Sanctum of the Clockwork King, then there needs to be a Clockwork King. So I adapted a Ninjago minifigure, Echo Zane, to fill that role.

Is he good or evil? What arcane purpose does his sanctum serve? Those of you who've seen my previous entries in the Nexogon parts festival won't be surprised to learn that the answers are up to you!

Oh, don't get me wrong, it does look cool. And it's a silly thing to criticize on a MOC that still manages to be so aesthetically interesting. I dunno; it's just a weird observation—I suppose years of being a Bionicle fan have trained me to expect some sort of dynamic funcionality whenever I see so many exposed gears.

It's sort of weird, a lot of my designs tend to be "form follows function"-type builds, so it was hard for me to put so many gears that served no mechanical purpose on something. I think if I were to have the whole thing rotate I'd have to make it even bigger, and I had trouble fitting it into my light box for photos as it is. I treated it as more of a way to showcase a potential use of the Nexogon rather than a full-fledged MOC I'd put on display, so it's a little rough in some places. I think if I were to bring it to a convention or something then it would definitely need to be motorized in some way to really look good.